


well aware

by mistilteinn



Series: just like a song [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt is straight up an idiot in this, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Sexual Content, Top Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, We love that for her, Yen is low-key supportive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22111942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistilteinn/pseuds/mistilteinn
Summary: Geralt has forgotten a great many things over the course of his life (some of more import than others), but this, he knows, he will forever carry.People will say whatever justifies despising his kind. That doesn't make the rumors true.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: just like a song [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592488
Comments: 39
Kudos: 1441
Collections: GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY, Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	well aware

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first i've written for these characters and let me just admit right now: i know absolutely nothing. nothing at all. everything is made up. inspired by geralt's absolute emotional constipation during s1 of the show and limited play throughs of the wild hunt 
> 
> (title from "Falling" by Harry Styles)

Geralt has forgotten a great many things over the course of his life (some of more import than others), but this, he knows, he will forever carry. 

The cornflower blue of Jaskier’s eyes - the way it all but disappears entirely when Geralt steps close, crowds into his space in the small room that the bard has managed to rent for the night. 

Jaskier is no fair maiden, but nor is he a practiced whore, and when Geralt slides a hand beneath his finery to feel soft, silken skin, he can see Jaskier’s pulse quicken in his throat, can smell the arousal pooling in the air around them both. It mixes with Jaskier’s myriad oils and his own potions, creating a perfume that feels dangerously like home.

He breathes in deeply, the heady scent traveling through him to settle somewhere inside. It alights in his veins, and the want skittering down his spine becomes stronger, more desperate. The bed is steps away, old and not quite big enough to fit two comfortably, but Geralt already knows that no sleeping will be had there tonight.

“Jas,” he says, instead of what he intends. _I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things. I never should have left. I think of you every night._

Jaskier raises a hand - to push away or pull closer, Geralt doesn’t know. He catches the bard’s arm in his grip and feels blood moving under the thin skin of Jaskier’s wrist against his fingers. 

“Geralt.” Jaskier answers, and kisses him. 

\---

Roach has been his constant companion since Geralt accepted her as payment from an elderly farmer in exchange for slaying some drowners living in a stream at the edge of his property, snatching nearby children and his animals in turns. 

The farmer had insisted on paying when Geralt returned with three heads neatly severed as proof; Geralt had initially tried to refuse once he heard how the beasts had spent many a season terrorizing the poor man and his family.

The farmer had simply ignored his protests and pressed a set of reins into Geralt’s hand, a peculiar sort of determination glinting in his eye.

“Reckon this one’ll be more than worth yer trouble,” he had said of the young mare, and years later, Geralt supposed he was right. 

“Settle, girl,” Geralt said, patting her neck. She was on edge, much as he was - solitary traveling through the wilds of Verden at night wasn’t his ideal, but Geralt was trying to make it to Brugge before a massive storm blew in and halted him in its stead for days. 

His haste brought their path closer to Brokilon than he’d normally like, but some things couldn’t be helped. 

Roach nickered at him, tossing her head unhappily when Geralt nudged her forward once more. She had been out of sorts for the past several weeks of their journey, and Geralt hadn’t the time to attend to her in the way she was accustomed. 

“Good oats and a long rub down once we arrive at Brugge.” He promised absently, wondering of the rumors he had heard at the last inn. 

For months, a rogue mage with violet eyes had traveled through Sodden, granting wishes and leaving shattered lives along her path. 

With any luck, he’d arrive at Brugge just as Yennefer did, bear the brunt of her fury himself instead of the (mostly) innocent civilians.

He sighed and nudged Roach again, frowning apologetically when she snorted at his impatience.

\---

Geralt would never admit it, not even under threat of extreme torture, but he _felt_ more in the moment that Jaskier’s body yielded to him than he had over decades of life and thousands of intimate encounters. 

It was as if his training and mutations had stifled his physical reactions, had blunted pain and honed his healing abilities, yes, but had also hidden the purest depths of pleasure from him. 

Jaskier let go of the sheets next to his head when Geralt was fully sheathed, leaving wrinkled linen in his wake. Gazing upon them, Geralt thought for a moment, rather idiotically, that if only he could read where the lines intersected, he’d be able to see both their futures. 

He shut his eyes, momentarily overwhelmed as the bard wound his fingers through his hair, long since escaped from its tie. Jaskier pulled, and Geralt shook over him, the bone-deep heat searing his insides. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier repeated, and Geralt realized that the bard had been calling to him for some time, tone increasingly pleading.

“What?” Geralt spoke through gritted teeth, opening his eyes once more to meet Jaskier’s gaze. 

“Move, you great brute -” Jaskier laughed and cut off with a gasp when Geralt pulled out, snapping his hips snugly against Jaskier’s ass. 

And if Geralt privately thought that the bard must detest silence by his chatter on the road, that was nothing compared to how vocal he was in bed. Each new movement caused a sigh, a moan, a quiet exclamation of “good _gods_ -”

Strangely, Geralt couldn’t get enough. He leaned down to lay a kiss under Jaskier’s jaw, nipped a mark while he was there, and was rewarded with a _“fuck!”_ and a sharp yank of his hair, a hand curled almost painfully around his bicep. 

He felt so _much_ of this encounter, of the way that Jaskier’s body moved around his, that he wondered if the wool had been lifted from over his eyes, if he had been in the midst of a fog his entire life. 

Geralt thrust deeper, moved so that he hit a new angle, and curved a hand around Jaskier’s face, sweat dripping down his back and cooling his skin. It soothed the electricity zigzagging through his body, the sharp pinpricks of arousal catching his breath in his chest.

Jaskier’s mouth opened in a silent shout on the next thrust and he gripped Geralt by the back of the neck, pulled him so that their foreheads rested against each other. When he opened his eyes and they locked gazes, something deep in Geralt’s chest shifted; heat coiled low in his stomach and tightened his balls.

“I, ah,” Geralt grunted, his rhythm stuttering with the new sensations.

He wrapped a hand hurriedly around Jaskier’s length when the other man squeezed his eyes shut and hissed, “I swear to the gods, if you don’t touch me right now!”

Jaskier came first, dropping his head back against the pillow with a soft thunk. His throat was a thing of beauty - a long pale column, now littered with evidence of Geralt’s claim. The thought of the local townsfolk being able to see just who Jaskier belonged to sent him over the edge, his climax pulsing through him and releasing deep inside of the bard. 

\---

Geralt and Roach arrived at Brugge just as the winds were chilling, signifying a formidable storm approached. He handed her to the stable boy, promising numerous broken bones if she or his bags were mistreated in any way during his visit. 

The hand, a slight young man with too-long brown hair and light eyes, had dropped his gaze right away and nodded frantically, gripping her reins tightly in shaking hands. Geralt had sighed and shaken his head when the young man led Roach away, uncomfortable in a way that he couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

With a shrug, Geralt turned towards the door, oddly heavily guarded for the time of day. Perhaps the king had heard the rumors of a witch in the countryside as well.

Venzlav’s court welcomed Geralt with uncharacteristically open arms, piquing his suspicions immediately. Were it not for the weather worsening, Geralt would have considered turning right back around and riding out of the kingdom. 

After the third lord tried to embrace Geralt upon meeting, the witcher turned to face the closest window, scowling deeply as he watched fat droplets of rain beat down against the glass. He wouldn’t be able to leave until morning at the earliest, and certainly not before then if he wanted to ride Roach without her bucking him off.

Finally, the king himself greeted Geralt, several years older than he was when they first met, and now with a wife and two children in tow. The little man hugged Geralt, an invasion that he only allowed in return for their friendship from years past. 

During the embrace, Venzlav whispered into Geralt’s ear, his voice shaking and quiet. 

“There is evil here, in the dungeon. She made a home for herself there some weeks ago and has been killing anyone I send down to try to reason with her. Please help us.”

Geralt pulled back to look at his friend. Perhaps the lines on his face were from stress, the gray in his hair from fear. It truly hadn’t been that long since they had last crossed paths - maybe six, seven years at most. 

Venzslav swallowed and spoke again, tone low enough that Geralt had to use his witcher hearing to catch what he said. “She will not allow anyone who enters the castle to leave. Please - my children are here. The food stocks are low.”

Geralt’s mouth tightened. The fear in the stable boy’s eyes. The heavy guard at the front door. The fanatical way the nobility had greeted him. 

He hadn’t beaten Yennefer after all.

“Fuck,” Geralt said, and the king nodded in agreement.

\---

“I won’t be able to cover these up, you know,” Jaskier said, referring to the marks on his neck as he buttoned up his dark green doublet. His tone was light, but in his eyes danced amusement, as if he knew something that Geralt didn’t.

“Hmm,” Geralt answered from his spot on the bed, shifting his gaze away. Geralt felt too much when he looked at the bard, and the bard saw too much when he looked at Geralt. It was a dangerous game they were playing. “I’ll be off at first light.”

“Oh?” Jaskier finished straightening his clothes and sat at Geralt’s side, running a light touch down the witcher’s bare arm. A small smile played about the edges of his mouth when goosebumps rose on Geralt’s skin. His next words drew Geralt’s gaze again. “And where are we going, pray tell?”

An unfamiliar sensation clutched at his throat for a moment, stealing his breath away. Fear. Geralt could taste it the way he sometimes tasted it on his foes. Never before had it come from so deep within him. But where did it come from?

 _Jaskier,_ Geralt realized. Jaskier in danger on the road. Geralt unable to protect him from both monsters and man in the war-torn lands of Sodden. 

Anger and shame at the fear made his answer short and sharp. “I said _I’ll_ be off.”

Jaskier blinked, the smile slipping off of his face as quickly as it had bloomed in the first place. Geralt frowned at how Jaskier’s blank expression made his heart sink. He was unfamiliar with that sensation too.

“ _Oh._ Right. Of course,” Jaskier said softly, standing up and pulling back, leaving Geralt chilled beneath the thin blankets. Jaskier nodded and brushed at some invisible lines on his clothes, stepping across the small room to sit at the table next to the fireplace. 

Geralt clenched his hands to keep from following, from reaching after, from tugging Jaskier back down into the safety of his lap and the warmth of the bed. 

\---

Yennefer was exactly the same as Geralt remembered. When he saw her sitting on a makeshift throne in the center of the dungeon main hall, a pang rung through his hollow chest, resonating against his ribcage. She shook out her glossy hair and rested her delicate chin in hand and he wished that he _felt_ with her. 

“What are you doing here, Yen?” Geralt asked, guarded. She smiled at him and tilted her head sweetly before answering. 

“Why, waiting for you to arrive, of course.” If he were a younger witcher, he might believe her for a moment. He’d certainly already be dead.

“What do you want?” Geralt asked shortly, exhausted. His armor was weighing heavily on him today. An emptiness in his stomach left him feeling brittle, overwrought.

“Who says I want anything more than to see your lovely face?” Yennefer stood from her seat and the illusion cloaking it dropped, revealing an impressive pile of bones. Geralt frowned at it and her in the flickering candlelight.

“Yen,” he repeated flatly.

“What?” Yennefer asked, looking back to the pile and laughing delightedly at her work. “Oh, they all deserved it, love, I swear.”

She stepped close and Geralt felt the vestiges of desire as he scented lilac and gooseberries. Some time ago, he would have thought that this level of longing was irresistible, but now it barely quickened his pulse. He knew what true desperation felt like, what devastation looked like in the depths of one’s soul. 

Yennefer embraced him, and Geralt gave as much of himself as he could, holding her by the waist and the delicate curve of her jaw. Yen tangled a hand in his hair to steady him and he followed her lead, opening instantly when she deepened their kiss. 

His heart was unmoved, though his cock was interested, and Geralt wished to have never known hunger for another in the way that he knew it with the bard and his blue eyes.

Yennefer bit his lip and he jerked back, shocked at the pain. She licked the blood from her mouth and narrowed her eyes. 

“Don’t ever think of another while holding me, witcher. Never forget that I can end you with less effort than it takes you to piss.”

“Yen,” Geralt said, going for a placating tone. He continued when the sorceress raised her brow, careful with his words. “I apologize. Recently I’ve found myself under another’s spell. I can’t seem to shake the effects.”

“I disagree,” she answered, drawing herself from his arms and turning an appraising eye to him. “Looks like you’re out from under _any_ spells right now. Good for you. Less good for me.”

Geralt didn’t miss the disappointment flit over Yen’s fine features, and an emotion he had recently identified as guilt settled in his stomach. “I’m sorry -” he began.

“Don’t be,” she said shortly. The sorceress looked around at the bones around them and raised her hand, opening the doors on either side of the hall. 

After a few moments, around a dozen men stepped out from the dark cells, blinking in the light and looking thin, but of all their faculties.

Geralt turned back to his friend, surprise curling the corners of his mouth. 

She glared back at him, answering his amusement sharply. “What? I’m bored, not a rampaging murderess. I told you - I only killed the men that deserved it.”

This time when Geralt spoke, his voice was tinged with warmth. “Yen.”

\---

“And who’s captivated the witcher so?” Jaskier asked from where he sat by the fire, tuning his lute. Geralt resisted the urge to yank the damned thing from his hands, smash it to bits. 

He’d been like this since Geralt shot him down an hour before, all snide comments and false bravado hiding his hurt. 

Geralt wanted to grab hold of his slim shoulders to shake him and yell, to shout that it was Jaskier’s own fault for putting Geralt under this infernal bewitchment, to plead for forgiveness, to promise to return from the danger shortly.

He grunted.

At Jaskier’s raised brows and open mouth, Geralt looked down at his partially laced boots, frowning at their insolence. He looked back up when Jaskier spoke again, now polishing the body of his lute.

“Oh, so you’re gonna brood us to death, then? Good, good.” Jaskier rolled his eyes and turned back to his instrument, and Geralt fought down a small panic. Why couldn’t he just gather the words and _speak?_ But that wasn’t him: words were a bard’s weapon, not a witcher’s. 

Geralt had to try, his tone harsh even to his own ears. “Jaskier, you can’t -”

“Don’t think it’s your place to tell me what I can and can’t do, hm?” Jaskier shot back, cheeks already flushed pink, and slammed the small polish tin down onto the table next to him. 

He tried again, this time more gently. “No, I wasn’t - I meant _I_ can’t -”

Jaskier interrupted loudly, well on his way to a rage. “Can’t do this? Can’t keep a bedmate around as a companion?”

The bard ran a hand through his hair, yanking it out of place rather roughly. Geralt’s own hand ached to set it back to rights.

He bristled at Jaskier’s tone, at his own weakness and inability to speak. Geralt snarled at Jaskier. 

“You don’t understand, Jas!”

Jaskier narrowed his eyes and spoke quietly, shifting away to face the table. “Or perhaps it’s that I’m just not the _right_ bedmate to take along? Wrong hair? Wrong eyes?”

The witcher stood, righteous anger burning just beneath the surface. How dare Jaskier imply - 

“Perhaps so!” Geralt said before he could stop himself, intent on causing pain. 

Jaskier froze for a moment, and Geralt’s heart sunk in his chest. He’d done it. 

His companion was hurt all right. 

When Jaskier turned back to face him, he rubbed his cheeks roughly, trying to hide the tear tracks as if Geralt couldn’t see them across the room. 

“I was right about you, you know,” Jaskier said, the blue of his eyes very nearly glowing in the low light. 

When Geralt didn’t respond, too hesitant to say anything and risk making it worse, Jaskier spoke softly. “You smell of heartbreak.” 

“And onions,” the bard meanly added after another moment of silence. 

\---

Geralt had intended to leave Brugge after the storm cleared some days later. Roach was plump and happy when he checked in, though she did try to kick Geralt when he first entered the stall to saddle her. 

He had settled her before packing up, running a gloved hand through her mane and feeding her handfuls of good oats that he’d wheedled from the kitchens on the way out. 

They’d made it as far as the first serf’s farm before a small child ran out to intercept their path, pleading with Geralt to slay the monster terrorizing her family. Geralt had sighed and followed, Roach nickering softly. 

Much of the same had followed; Geralt would ride for a day or less before being waylaid - pulled aside by this tragedy or that mystery, promised payment in gold, food, lodging, or some combination of all three. Geralt would have been a fool to decline any of the contracts, and so here he was.

Finally, they were past the last Brugge settlement, riding towards Temeria. The sun was bright in the sky and his coin purse and saddlebags were heavy. Normally that was all Geralt required for high spirits, but he never chose to spend so many weeks in one region and he was more than ready to leave; almost an entire season had passed since Geralt last set foot outside of the kingdom. 

Each day Geralt rode well past nightfall before stopping off to make camp, eager to put as much distance between himself and Brugge as possible. The path was largely uneventful, and Geralt ignored the incessant twinge of loneliness with the professional ease of a decades-old witcher _(“No, Roach, his eyes don’t match the afternoon sky perfectly. What would you know?”)._

After at least a fortnight of traveling with only Roach for company, Geralt was relieved to come upon a rickety inn on the side of the main road. It was meager at best, and the sign was somehow misspelled, but Geralt could smell the alcohol and cooked meat from outside. 

He dismounted and tied Roach to the provided post, making sure she had enough length to both graze and reach the water trough. He patted her neck when she nosed him affectionately, promising to bring her a treat in the morning.

Geralt entered the inn, finding it more than half full and bustling, most of the patrons singing along to some inane bard’s tune. He settled at a table near the door and ordered an ale and food when the barmaid came along a few minutes later. 

He was busy making eye contact only with his stew and drinking himself numb when a shadow darkened his view. 

Geralt sighed, readying himself to hear some overconfident traveling merchant demand the mutant leave such that everyone might get drunk in peace, and looked up.

He froze. 

Jaskier froze as well, for once surprised into silence.

“I saw a flash of silver and hoped it was you rather than some old silk trader.”

Well, almost surprised into silence. 

Geralt stood slowly, his heart thumping almost painfully in his chest. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the bard - dark hair freshly cut, cheekbones more pronounced. Was that an illusion from the light, or had Jaskier lost weight during the half-year they were apart? 

Jaskier’s stare raked over his form, appraising. Geralt started when he realized that he’d done just the same thing not a minute before. He wondered what Jaskier saw.

“Come to my room?” Jaskier asked, quickly dropping his gaze and flushing. He continued after a long moment, glancing back up to Geralt with familiar blue eyes. “We could - catch up.”

Geralt nodded in answer.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was definitely an experimental type of writing for me. the sections aren't necessarily in chronological order, and that was a fun challenge
> 
> let me know what you think! i'm new to this fandom and am definitely open to feedback :)


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